Always Have Dessert First
by adhDrabbles
Summary: In which Dr. Spencer Reid finally has something sweet in his life. Spencer/OC oneshot


**Criminal Minds! *happy dance* this is a little fluffy drabble i wrote for my favorite character, Spencer Reid. He's so nerdy and adorable... I decided he needed a girlfriend. :3 **

**This is just after Spencer gets shot in the knee, i can't remember what season that is at the moment... ~**

Spencer slowly counted out a rhythm in his mind, wincing at every number 2 and 5. His knee twinged as he put it through the slow motions he had been given. The doctors said he was recovering quickly thanks to his youth, but it was hard to believe as he endured his 22nd session in physical therapy. Though he had to admit there was one upside to being forced to come here day after day...

"How're we doing Spencer?" Kate asked, kneeling down and gently examining his knee as he completed another set of lifts and bends.

"Good, thank you. I think it's getting easier." Spencer replied through a grimace. Kate laughed and flipped through his chart. He could tell there was something on her mind by the way she kept fidgeting with her hair. He had come to recognize in their weeks together that she absently tucked her hair behind her right ear when she was thinking hard about something. "Is anything wrong?" He asked.

"Oh no, everything's fine. I was just thinking that today will be the last time using the ultrasound machine. The swelling in the tissue has gone down." The physical therapist smiled warmly and scribbled a note on his chart. Even though he knew she gave all her patients that gentle smile, he couldn't help but feel it was all for him. Despite her young age she was excellent at her job, more than her working knowledge; Kate's kindness and humor were what let her heal people. Spencer finished his exercises and they got set up by one of the portable ultrasound machines.

"Here hold this while I fill this out okay?" Kate handed him the small ultrasound wand.

"You know Douglass Howry and Joseph Holmes invented the precursor to this tool called the Pan-Scanner in 1957. Patients had to sit on a modified dental chair and be totally or partially immersed in saline, remaining motionless for long periods of time while the transducer rotated through the solution in a semicircular arc." Spencer looked up to see Kate giving him a look he had come to know all to well, albeit with more amusement in it than most. He internally smacked himself on the forehead.

"You're kind of a nerd, you know that?" Kate chuckled as she took the wand from him. Spencer smiled and rolled up his pant leg so she could squirt cold therapeutic gel onto his knee.

"I'm doing incredibly well by my standards if you just now noticed." Spencer replied, smiling.

"You know, you aren't the type of guy I picture when I think 'FBI Agent.'" Kate saw the disappointment in his face and added hastily, "I don't mean anything bad by that, I guess Hollywood has just made me expect some kind of trigger-happy James Bond type." She was blushing lightly; it made her look even more charming.

"I'm not that kind of agent," Spencer laughed as he thought of how much Derrick would appreciate that comment, "I'm a profiler."

"Yeah I remember you saying that before- what does that mean exactly?" Kate asked, her hazel eyes bright with interest.

"Well " No sense in hiding it I guess, he thought, "I'm part of a team that studies, investigates and apprehends serial killers. We use profiling, a kind of behavioral analysis, as a tool to understand them and catch them." Spencer braced himself for her reaction, certain he had just stopped any slim chance he might have had of getting a date cold. To his surprise, after a small look of shock, Kate leaned forward, seemingly eager and interested.

"So you use that mega-brain of yours to put the worst kind of people behind bars, huh? You're more James Bond than I thought." She playfully tapped his forehead with her pen. Spencer was caught off guard; he hadn't been expecting her to be okay with what he did. She even seemed a little impressed.

"It's a group effort, I'm nowhere near the best profiler on the team." Spencer replied.

Kate's eyes got wide. "There are people out there that are smarter than you?" She laughed and started wiping the gel from his knee.

"Well having a high IQ doesn't make you the best profiler. I try to be a resource for my team with my eidetic memory, but I learn how to do my job better by watching all of them every day." He chuckled and tugged his pant leg back down.

"That's really incredible Spencer." Kate's green eyes stared into his, and he couldn't help but feel a little flustered. Women, especially beautiful women, just didn't look at him like that very often. "Say, do you like Thai food?" She asked as she walked him up to the checkout desk.

"Definitely, there was a place in Vegas I used to love called Nam Pla. Great noodles." Spencer replied, thrown off by the random question.

"Well, Jasmine Thai just opened downtown; I hear it's really good." Kate prompted with a shy smile. If Spencer didn't know better he would have thought she was hinting for him to ask her out, but he did know better, so he wrote it off as small talk.

"Cool." He replied lamely. The pair stood in awkward silence for a moment, and Spencer got the feeling he was missing something. Kate rolled her eyes and smiled at him.

"This is usually the part where you say something like 'We should have dinner there sometime.' or, 'Are you free Friday night? We could try it out.'" She put her hands on her hips and waited with an amused grin on her face.

"Right, um so would you?" Spencer managed through his fluster. She kept waiting. "Would you want to have dinner with me there?" She raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to finish. He chuckled. "Friday night?" She finally let him off the hook.

"That sounds lovely, meet you there at eight o'clock?" She giggled. Spencer nodded and they said their goodbyes till then. He was amazed, was he actually going on a date with a beautiful, intelligent, funny girl like Kate Mercer?

* * *

It was one of those rare days at the BIU, the team actually got back from their assignment when they were scheduled to. They all converged at the coffee maker; it had become something of a ritual after hard cases. Prentiss poured a steaming cup for JJ and then for Spencer, handing him the four sugar packets she knew he required in his coffee. Just as he took the cup with a grateful nod, his cell-phone chirped. The team's youngest profiler hurriedly rummaged in his pocket; oblivious to the amused sideways looks his coworkers were giving him.

"So, you've been getting a lot of texts lately Reid. Who is she?" Morgan grinned slyly. Even their ever serious leader seemed interested. Hotch accepted his straight black coffee from Prentiss and waited for his answer with the rest of them.

"What are you all staring at me for? She's just a friend." Spencer glanced around at his team, not one of them wore an expression that said they believed him for a second.

"Right. All my friends text me at two am. And did you see that hustle for the phone when it went off? Look at the kid JJ, he's blushing." Morgan laughed and jostled his younger friend's shoulder. Spencer futilely tried to sidetrack them, but they were on his case now.

"Okay, okay Her name is Kate Mercer; she's a physical therapist and yoga instructor at the medical center downtown." Spencer felt ridiculous, even just saying her name made him happy.

"Way to go Reid." Prentiss tipped her coffee cup in his direction.

"Yoga instructor, huh? She must be flexible." Garcia purred playfully, relishing the young doctor's blush. Everyone burst out laughing. After prying a few more details out of him, his friends finally had mercy on him and they disbanded for the night.

"Hey, what are you doing up so late?" Spencer asked as he drove home. He knew they both had work in the morning, but he needed to hear her voice.

"I know you don't always get back when you're supposed to, so I wanted to check in, see if you'd be home tonight or not." Kate replied. He thought he could hear something in the background, like a loud clock ticking, or something being chopped up.

"What are you making?" Spencer asked with a knowing smile. She liked to cook when she couldn't sleep.

"Your favorite, vegetarian ravioli." She responded, and Spencer could hear the sound of a faucet running.

"I don't know how you do it. You are the only person in this world that can get me to eat spinach and like it." He laughed.

"Your brand of genius isn't the only brand around Dr. Reid." Kate responded playfully.

"So when do I get to eat the fruits of said genius?" Reid asked. He wasn't even hungry, but the thought of Kate's raviolis made his mouth water regardless.

"How far are you from your apartment?" Kate answered with a question of her own. Spencer's eyes widened, she was at his place cooking in the middle of the night when she wasn't even sure if he would be back? He couldn't help the grin spreading across his face.

"Kate, you didn't have to go to all the trouble-" He stammered, but she cut him off.

"It's no trouble. I haven't seen you for a week; I wanted to do something special." She laughed and told him it was about time he hung up and focused on his driving. He wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep from the past week or not, but Spencer found himself feeling almost giddy with anticipation at seeing her. When he got into the elevator to go up to his apartment he found himself tapping the button for his floor repeatedly, trying to somehow get the machine to go faster.

He opened his door and the sounds and smells of a homey Italian kitchen greeted him. It was like heaven. He had never thought of his apartment as a place he liked to get back to before he gave Kate a key. It used to be a place for him to sleep when he wasn't at work. Now it was almost like a home.

"Kate?" Spencer called, hanging up his coat and scarf on the stand by the door. Her bright red purse and tall boots were on the floor, it made him smile to see them there in his entryway.

"In here!" She responded from the kitchen. His apartment was small but nice, and the little formal dining area had been set with two glasses and a bottle of wine waiting to be poured. He stopped in his tracks when his eyes landed on her.

Her wavy honey colored hair was pinned up in a loose twist on the back of her head; she wore one of his ivory dress shirts and nothing else. She had the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and it was strategically buttoned to reveal glimpses of a lacy red bra and matching pair of panties beneath. If his jaw hadn't been attached to his face, it would have fallen off.

"Are you hungry now? Or shall we eat later?" Kate asked coyly, approaching him slowly since he seemed to be frozen in place.

"Um Later's good. Later is perfectly fine." Spencer could only manage to put a few simple words together at a time while looking at her.

"Good." Kate gave him a little pose, "You like?" She smiled sensuously.

"Oh God yes." Spencer stammered, and then regained some of his composure. "You know, I am the luckiest man alive? There's an unbelievably gorgeous and sexy woman in my apartment." He grinned as she slid into his arms.

"An unbelievably gorgeous and sexy woman that can cook, you mean." Kate kissed him lightly on the nose. Spencer laughed and nodded just before he captured her lips with his. After a few moments they broke apart, desperate for breath.

"I missed you." Kate whispered, tucking her head under his chin and giving him a gentle hug.

"I missed you too. Thank you for all of this Kate, you're amazing." Spencer replied. He smiled and bent to kiss her soft lips, suddenly not drained from the past week's horrors in the least.


End file.
